1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to fluid ejecting apparatuses such as ink jet printers or the like.
2. Related Art
Ink jet printers (called simply “printers” hereinafter) have been widely known for some time as fluid ejecting apparatuses that eject ink onto recording paper (a target). In such printers, there has been a problem in that thickening of the ink caused by the ink evaporating from the nozzles of a recording head has led to the occurrence of nozzle clogging. Accordingly, the printers normally carry out a flushing operation that forcefully ejects the ink within the nozzles, an operation that is separate from the ejecting of ink onto the recording paper. Furthermore, JP-A-2009-6682 discloses a liquid ejecting apparatus in which the liquid within the nozzles is resistant to thickening. In order to realize a fluid ejecting apparatus in which the liquid within the nozzles is resistant to thickening even without covering the nozzles, the liquid ejecting apparatus according to JP-A-2009-6682 includes the nozzles for ejecting the liquid and a humidification mechanism provided within a housing, the humidification mechanism humidifying the interior of the housing by heating or spraying the liquid outside of the nozzles in order to suppress thickening of the liquid within the nozzles.
Incidentally, with the liquid ejecting apparatus according to JP-A-2009-6682, a wide area within the housing is humidified, and thus a large amount of energy and evaporation medium (water or the like) is necessary. This issue is particularly serious in printers that have large capacities, such as line-head printers, large-size printers, and so on. Furthermore, humidifying the interior of the housing also results in the humidification of the printing paper surface, paper that is standing by for printing, and so on, and because the humidity within the paper has risen as a result, there has been a problem in that ink that has been ejected during printing does not dry easily.
Meanwhile, carrying out the aforementioned flushing operations wastes time. Furthermore, the operations for carrying out the flushing (movement to a flushing position) are necessary, and also waste ink.